2013 Malaysian GP - Sepang

[myurr]

And by "racing on the limit," you mean one guy on a compromised strategy (harder tires) being overtaken via DRS by the guy who compromised the strategy?

OK.

Webber chose to be on the harder tyre simply because he's harder on them in the begining. Makes zero difference to me. Not to mention he wasn't overtaken with DRS. Even if he was, DRS is an integral part of F1 in this time, nothing we can do about it. You can stop your provocations now.

Vettel got alongside because of DRS, and whilst it took three corners to shake out they were alongside in all those corners starting with the one where DRS was used. So yes he did get past because of DRS.

But more importantly if Webber was told over the radio to turn the engine down and was repeatedly assured that Vettel wasn't going to attack, which several sources support, then he wouldn't have pushed as hard as he could to get out of the DRS zone. We can't possibly know what would have happened had there not been team orders in play, and that means we can't rule them out as a factor. Chances are this wasn't a fair fight - Vettel failed to overtake earlier in the race despite being on mediums whilst Webber was on hards, so we have that evidence that the pass should probably have been very hard.

We can argue all day if it was a fair fight or not, but at the very least team orders were a factor and to me that by definition means it wasn't a fair fight.

[WhiteBlue]

In the scheme of things those 7 points is a relatively small amount compared to having good will with your team mate when things get tough in the second half of the year. I think Vettel may end up really regretting this incident, and I still believe this is the main reason the team have so far backed Webber more than Vettel.

He certainly regretted that he was attacked for it. I do not see much support by Mark Webber for Seb when it counts. Just remember Brazil 2012. Mark is at Red Bull because he helps with the constructors and has a good relationship with the boss man. They could employ another driver with equal performance. We should not forget that Mark can do a hand full of good races per season and win them when he is in a good car. But he definitely does not have the capability and the speed to go successfully up against the likes of Alonso and Hamilton in a championship fight. He botches too many qualifyings and and GP starts plus he is handicapped by his high weight. So he will never be a match for Seb over a full season. The team knows that and should not have brought their two drivers into such a situation. There was no need at all to save engines. The Renault engine is rock solid when you disregard the alternator failures of last year. This bloody go slow and managing a race is the true evil of modern F1. I felt very bad for Nico Rosberg and I agree with people who blast Ross Brawn for his unsporting decision.

[GrizzleBoy]

I tried to say what I'm about to say before, but I don't think it came out right.

Regarding Rosberg on Hamilton.

If Lewis had been told to drive a certain way by his engineers (as they all are) that ultimately meant he was in fuel saving from lap 25, and meant that Nico would be allowed breeze past him in the later stages, is that not giving Nico position by team orders of a different kind?

Those orders being whoever made the call to short fuel and the call for Lewis to drive in a way which meant he didn't have enough left in the tank at the end of the race?

That being the case, can we use the word "deserving" to say that Nico deserved third? Does having more fuel in your car mean you deserve the position over a team mate who qualified better and drove as needed (when able to) in order to maintain their position?

Same with Mark I guess.

If the agreement is "Okay guys, whoever gets to X point in the race first gets to stay ahead" in the team meeting, and one team mate drives and strategises in such a way to win that internal race in the teams eyes and therefore be ahead, did he not deserve it? Assuming both drivers would have been racing to win that internal battle, does winning it mean nothing if it meant that you compromised your overall strategy?

Lets say for instance that Mark had to push harder to get to that position with the intention to back off at the end, expecting compliance due to the terms all parties agreed to prior to the race, did he not do what he needed to do to earn that place in the teams eyes?

Maybe what is really turning Marks stomach, is that maybe (in his mind) it was expected that Seb would be where he was and that this agreement was put in place to keep him behind should a reversed situation have come about. And he's seen that it indeed doesn't go the other way when things are reversed.

/brainfart

[Mika1]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAirsALnxyM[/youtube]

[myurr]

In the scheme of things those 7 points is a relatively small amount compared to having good will with your team mate when things get tough in the second half of the year. I think Vettel may end up really regretting this incident, and I still believe this is the main reason the team have so far backed Webber more than Vettel.

He certainly regretted that he was attacked for it. I do not see much support by Mark Webber for Seb when it counts. Just remember Brazil 2012. Mark is at Red Bull because he helps with the constructors and has a good relationship with the boss man. They could employ another driver with equal performance. We should not forget that Mark can do a hand full of good races per season and win them when he is in a good car. But he definitely does not have the capability and the speed to go successfully up against the likes of Alonso and Hamilton in a championship fight. He botches too many qualifyings and and GP starts plus he is handicapped by his high weight. So he will never be a match for Seb over a full season. The team knows that and should not have brought their two drivers into such a situation. There was no need at all to save engines. The Renault engine is rock solid when you disregard the alternator failures of last year. This bloody go slow and managing a race is the true evil of modern F1. I felt very bad for Nico Rosberg and I agree with people who blast Ross Brawn for his unsporting decision.

There's a lot of opinion and little fact in that post.

[sAx]

It's a multi-map setting. It may ALSO mean hold station if that's what the team have discussed the setting is for, but it's most definitely a setting on the steering wheel which controls various systems, most probably turning off/down. It was quite clear on the radio when Vettel was attacking Mark the team where telling him to "take KERS out of overtake pattern" and "use KERS normally".

And the reason it may override the other settings on the steering wheel is because it would be ridiculous to ask the driver to change 10 different settings just to put the car in cruise mode. Certain configurations are on a quick select using the multi-map setting. For example, wet weather setup (which switches on the light as well as other things). Of course, all the other settings are there for adhoc manual changes.

I am prepared to accept it...

Though you seem lost between what you will and won't accept, that's great to hear!

[Steven]

Joe Saward also had his say on the Vettel-Webber incident this weekend on his blog:
http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2013/03/ ... akespeare/

[jamsbong]

I think Webber was quite a dangerous driver. He pushed Vettel all the way towards the wall. Was he hoping for a kamikaze? Then after the race, he deliberately cut across in front of Vettel. That is just plain reckless and is a horrible role model for anyone to follow. Just because he is upset (even if it was not his own fault), it does not give him the justification to behave immaturely and just being plain dangerous.

[ForzaFer]

Just to clear something up. I see a lot of discussion going about webber's tyres in the last stint. It was not his decision and it was not due to the fact that they were going to preserve tyres and fuel and just bring car home, it was simply because he didn't have any new mediums. He used first set in Q1, second in Q2 and third set in third stint of the race.

[henra]

There's a lot of opinion and little fact in that post.

Which differntiates it from your post (or many other posts for that matter) how, exactly?

[CHT]

Just to clear something up. I see a lot of discussion going about webber's tyres in the last stint. It was not his decision and it was not due to the fact that they were going to preserve tyres and fuel and just bring car home, it was simply because he didn't have any new mediums. He used first set in Q1, second in Q2 and third set in third stint of the race.

which give Vettel more reason for doing what he did, because Vettel took a gamble on Q2 to use a Medium tire instead of a new one.

[myurr]

There's a lot of opinion and little fact in that post.

Which differntiates it from your post (or many other posts for that matter) how, exactly?

If you look back through my posts you'll see that I quite often use the phrase "in my opinion" or similar. Where I see what I think is an observable fact I'll tend to state it as fact, otherwise I try (but don't always succeed) to make it clear that it is my opinion. Can't claim to always get it right, but I do try.

In contrast WhiteBlue claims the following without using any language which suggests it's anything other than undeniable fact:

- "I do not see much support by Mark Webber for Seb when it counts. Just remember Brazil 2012." Single example, that is probably right but that's still debatable, contrasted to numerous examples where Mark has supported Vettel.

- "Mark is at Red Bull because he helps with the constructors and has a good relationship with the boss man." Part fact, the relationship part, the rest is supposition.

- "They could employ another driver with equal performance." Opinion.

- "We should not forget that Mark can do a hand full of good races per season and win them when he is in a good car. But he definitely does not have the capability and the speed to go successfully up against the likes of Alonso and Hamilton in a championship fight. He botches too many qualifyings and and GP starts plus he is handicapped by his high weight. So he will never be a match for Seb over a full season." All that is opinion. Indeed in 2010 he was a single result away from beating Seb over a full season, which is a world away from never being a match ever ever. He has only ever been dominated by Vettel when exhaust blown diffusers have been a major performance differentiator. Whenever their effects have been more limited he's either been much closer in pace or has beaten Vettel.

- "The team knows that and should not have brought their two drivers into such a situation. There was no need at all to save engines. The Renault engine is rock solid when you disregard the alternator failures of last year." All opinion with nothing at all to back it up. All teams save engines at all races.

- "This bloody go slow and managing a race is the true evil of modern F1. I felt very bad for Nico Rosberg and I agree with people who blast Ross Brawn for his unsporting decision." All opinion again. Managing the pace has been a part of F1 since day 1 where the cars are always limited by something. The tyres are today's limiting factor, but before even with refuelling we still had cars running to the pace their fuel levels would allow. We also have long lived engines, something WB backed when they were introduced, so teams will always turn their engines down whenever they can get away with it.

One of the unfortunate truisms on this board is that WhiteBlue will always support the German driver. He supported Vettel in Turkey 2010 blaming Mark 100% for the incident, and he'll continue to back the German driver in any given situation. I was trying not to engage too much lest this turn into a slanging match, so I'll bow out after this post, but I felt compelled to reply to your post and justify my previous claim.

[WhiteBlue]

He certainly regretted that he was attacked for it. I do not see much support by Mark Webber for Seb when it counts. Just remember Brazil 2012. Mark is at Red Bull because he helps with the constructors and has a good relationship with the boss man. They could employ another driver with equal performance. We should not forget that Mark can do a hand full of good races per season and win them when he is in a good car. But he definitely does not have the capability and the speed to go successfully up against the likes of Alonso and Hamilton in a championship fight. He botches too many qualifyings and and GP starts plus he is handicapped by his high weight. So he will never be a match for Seb over a full season. The team knows that and should not have brought their two drivers into such a situation. There was no need at all to save engines. The Renault engine is rock solid when you disregard the alternator failures of last year. This bloody go slow and managing a race is the true evil of modern F1. I felt very bad for Nico Rosberg and I agree with people who blast Ross Brawn for his unsporting decision.

There's a lot of opinion and little fact in that post.

Well, this is not a fact finding board and the thread is not for technical facts but for discussing the race weekend's actions. So I'm taking the liberty to have an opinion. Tomba even posted Joe Saward's opinion. Are we lesser individuals that are not supposed to have an opinion about such things? I think not.

Contrary to myurr's criticism I have not claimed to state facts and I'm not alone with many of my opinion points. There is a bunch of people out there who share my views. Beside that the reliability of the Renault engines is simply proven by examining the facts. Since Seb blew an engine in Korea 2010 I cannot think of an outright failure of the core engine which wasn't caused by a failing ancillary bit. Red Bull have no point to stand on if they claim the needed to save engines. That is a nice to have but should not get in the way of respecting both their racing drivers and their right to race each others if they are careful enough not to collide.

[bhall]

I really wanted to answer the lesser people question.

EDIT: Just to make it plainly obvious, I don't think this is necessarily a serious topic anymore, and as such, I think a little silliness - or a lot - is OK. That's just me, though.

[myurr]

Contrary to myurr's criticism I have not claimed to state facts and I'm not alone with many of my opinion points. There is a bunch of people out there who share my views. Beside that the reliability of the Renault engines is simply proven by examining the facts. Since Seb blew an engine in Korea 2010 I cannot think of an outright failure of the core engine which wasn't caused by a failing ancillary bit. Red Bull have no point to stand on if they claim the needed to save engines. That is a nice to have but should not get in the way of respecting both their racing drivers and their right to race each others if they are careful enough not to collide.

To prevent any escalation (and sorry if I've already caused offense), let's just focus on the engine reliability. That they've not had any units blow up since Korea 2010 isn't in an of itself proof that they don't need to protect their engines. It merely shows that at the very least they have thus far done a very good job of protecting them. It is a fact that at every single race there will have been a period where they have turned the engines down from their qualifying settings. If you can show me any evidence to the contrary then I'd be very interested to see it.

That in and of itself should be proof that they do need to protect their engines and that they've done a good job so far - and any additional margin that means they can push in another race when challenged by another team would be far more welcome to the team than a scrap between their drivers.